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dealing with trolls

some useful texts and links regarding trolls and how best to deal with them:

“Searching for Safety Online: Managing ‘Trolling’ in a Feminist Forum”A common phenomenon in online discussion groups is the individual who baits and provokes other group members, often with the result of drawing them into fruitless argument and diverting attention from the stated purposes of the group. This study documents a case in which the members of a vulnerable online community—a feminist web-based discussion forum—are targeted by a “troller” attempting to disrupt their discussion space. We analyze the strategies that make the troller successful and the targeted group largely ineffectual in responding to his attack, as a means to understand how such behavior might be minimized and managed in general. The analysis further suggests that feminist and other non-mainstream online forums are especially vulnerable, in that they must balance inclusive ideals against the need for protection and safety, a tension that can be exploited by disruptive elements to generate intragroup conflict. …

“The Nature of the Troll”… The truth is, whatever you say to a troll, he is not going to believe you, or admit that he does. He is not going to be convinced, because he has come to your blog especially to piss you off, to divert your energies from your struggles and goals. Trolls existed before the internet. They attacked brave feminists everywhere they spoke up; told feminists that women didn’t need feminism, that they were unnatural women, that they were going to hell, they beat them, they ridiculed them and they went to amazing lengths to shut them up. And why? Because they were afraid, and because, inside they knew that what feminists were talking about was real, that should feminism spread, their male privileges and constructed perverted pleasures would be destroyed. Every time a troll comes a-ranting, whether he polishes his argument with pseudo-intellectual gloss or simply calls you a whoredykebitchprude, he is afraid. And so he should be. …